Karl Marx once commented: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Less mature activists prefer the posture of changing the world over the hard work of understanding it, but as the young Marx also thundered: “Ignorance never did any one any good!”
Paul Le Blanc
By Paul Le Blanc
August 26, 2020 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Here are notes about the here-and-now, and about the future, enhanced by discussion with friends.
Several stark realities stare us in the face. As I reflect on them in the summer of 2020, I do so from the standpoint of those in the United States who want to see a democratic, humane, socialist future. What I see includes: the immediate awfulness of Donald Trump’s Presidency; the coronavirus pandemic made so much worse by that Presidency; the dramatic economic downturn which was already brewing but has now surged forward with the pandemic; the heightened racist/anti-racist conflict; and the looming environmental catastrophe that threatens to engulf our planet within the next two decades or so. Also, we are facing the threat of fascism.
The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.
By Bhaskar Sunkara.
New York: Basic Books, 2019.
276 pages, including index. Hardcover, $28.00.
Review by Paul Le Blanc